The Tool Box (bar)

Last updated

The Tool Box
The Tool Box (bar)
General information
Type Gay bar, Leather bar
Address399 Forth Street, San Francisco
Coordinates 37°46′53″N122°23′59″W / 37.781436119558954°N 122.39965457808451°W / 37.781436119558954; -122.39965457808451
Opened1962
Closed1971
OwnerBill Ruquy

The Tool Box was a leather bar for gay men in San Francisco that operated from 1962 to 1971 on the east corner of 4th Street and Harrison Street. [1] It was the first leather bar in the South of Market, [2] and a meeting spot where influential personalities of the early San Francisco leather scene gathered. After a prominent feature in Life magazine in 1964, it was considered the archetypal leather bar, helping to cement San Francisco's reputation as the "gay capital" of the US. The bar's history was short-lived: from 1965 onwards, the epicenter of the leather scene shifted towards Folsom Street (most notably Febe's bar), which ultimately led to its closing in 1971. [3] The Tool Box is commemorated at the San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley.

Contents

The patronage of the Tool Box included influential personalities of the early San Francisco leather scene, among others artist Bill Tellman, Jack H. (owner of the Detour and the Slot, co-owner of Febe's), artist Mike Caffee (creator of the logo and a statue for Febe's), [3] as well as the Satyrs Motorcycle Club (oldest gay motorcycle club in the US) from Los Angeles. [2] The artist Chuck Arnett also worked as a bartender at the Tool Box.

Reception

On June 26th 1964, Life magazine [4] published a cover story titled "Homosexuality in America", which not only brought San Francisco as a hub of gay life into public consciousness, but also the Tool Box. The article opened with a two-page photo-spread of its interior with patrons dressed in leather beneath a mural, photographed by Bill Eppridge. [5] In the 1991 anthology, Leatherfolk, Jack Fritscher described the article as "an image-liberating historical issue that was read across the nation as an invitation to come to San Francisco and be a man's man". [6] The article also included an interview with Bill Ruquy, part owner of the bar, who detailed the strict dress code that excluded tennis shoes among other garments that did not fit the biker aesthetic. [4] Especially for queer men living in conservative small towns, the publication shed a spotlight on this gay subculture of butch leathermen, who did not fit the widespread clichés of the 'effeminate homosexual'—and where to find them. Thus, the Life piece unintentionally became an advertisement for the leather scene and ultimately a catalyst of gay emancipation. [6]

Drummer magazine dedicated an article about the demolition of the Tool Box in its second volume in August 1975, titled "Requiem for a toolbox". [7] This further illustrates the importance that contemporaries awarded to the Tool Box's role in gay leather history.

Murals

The interior of the bar prominently featured oversized murals depicting a crowd of tough-looking masculine leather-clad men in black and white, among them sailors, bikers, businessmen and construction workers. [7] The inscription read "Marlboro Country...", casting the depicted as a whole roster of Marlboro Men. The mural, consisting of four panels in total, was painted in 1962 by artist Chuck Arnett. [8] Two panels were located along the south-facing walls towards Harrison Street, and two west-facing, on the glass storefront windows looking out onto 4th Street. During the 1960s, Arnett painted several replicas of the murals on wood panels, one of which was donated to the GLBT Historical Society's archive in 2021. One of the depicted men has been identified as the biker and photographer Joe Winters. [9]

After the closing of the bar, the building was torn down as part of the city's South of Market redevelopment plan. During the lengthy demolition and construction work, one wall remained virtually undamaged for several years, exposing the two remaining panels of the mural to passers-by. [10] [6] This can be seen in historical photographs from the collection of the GLBT Historical Society. [11]

In 2012, the artist Nayland Blake recreated Arnett's iconic Tool Box mural for his exhibition "FREE!LOVE!TOOL!BOX!", at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. [12]

The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley permanently displays a reproduction of Arnett's Tool Box Mural. [13] [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bear (gay culture)</span> Term for hairy and large men in LGBT community

In gay culture, a bear is a man who is fat, hairy, or both.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leather subculture</span> Subculture involving leather garments

Leather subculture denotes practices and styles of dress organized around sexual activities that involve leather garments, such as leather jackets, vests, boots, chaps, harnesses, or other items. Wearing leather garments is one way that participants in this culture self-consciously distinguish themselves from mainstream sexual cultures. Many participants associate leather culture with BDSM practices and its many subcultures. For some, black leather clothing is an erotic fashion that expresses heightened masculinity or the appropriation of sexual power; love of motorcycles, motorcycle clubs and independence; and/or engagement in sexual kink or leather fetishism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom of Finland</span> Finnish artist (1920–1991)

Touko Valio Laaksonen, known by the pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist who made stylized highly masculinized homoerotic art, and influenced late 20th-century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. Over the course of four decades, he produced some 3,500 illustrations, mostly featuring men with exaggerated primary and secondary sex traits, wearing tight or partially removed clothing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Folsom Street Fair</span> Kink and leather fair in San Francisco

Folsom Street Fair (FSF) is an annual kink, leather subculture, and alternative sexuality street fair, held in September that concludes San Francisco's "Leather Pride Week". The Folsom Street Fair, sometimes referred to simply as "Folsom", takes place on the last Sunday in September, on Folsom Street between 8th and 13th Streets, in San Francisco's South of Market district.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Steward</span> American poet, novelist, tattoo artist (1909–1993)

Samuel Morris Steward, also known as Phil Andros, Phil Sparrow, was an American tattoo artist and pornographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gayle Rubin</span> American cultural anthropologist, activist, and feminist

Gayle S. Rubin is an American cultural anthropologist, theorist and activist, best known for her pioneering work in feminist theory and queer studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Opel</span> American photographer and art gallery owner (1939–1979)

Robert Opel was an American photographer and art gallery owner most famous for streaking during the 46th Academy Awards in 1974.

The Bay Area Reporter is a free weekly LGBT newspaper serving the LGBT communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the largest-circulation LGBT newspapers in the United States, and the country's oldest continuously published newspaper of its kind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Arnett</span> American artist and dancer (1928-1988)

Charles "Chuck" Arnett was an American artist and dancer who was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana and died in San Francisco. His best-known work is the Tool Box mural (1962).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rainbow Motorcycle Club</span>

The Rainbow Motorcycle Club is a gay men's motorcycle club based in San Francisco, California. The club was founded in San Francisco in 1971 by Ron Johnson, Mario Pirami and Paul Denino. Some commentators have credited the RMC as being instrumental in the creation of the bear subculture among gay men during the 1980s and 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hal Call</span> American journalist

Harold Leland "Hal" Call was an American businessperson, LGBT rights activist, and U.S. Army veteran. He served as president of the Mattachine Society and in the 1950s, was one of the first gay activists to speak publicly on television. Call founded printing presses for LGBT publications and later opened gay adult shops and pornographic film screening venues. He received a Purple Heart for his service in the Pacific War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Fritscher</span> American writer

John Joseph "Jack" Fritscher is an American author, university professor, historian, and social activist known internationally for his fiction, erotica, and nonfiction analyses of pop culture and gay male culture. An activist prior to the Stonewall riots, he was an out and founding member of the Journal of Popular Culture. Fritscher became highly influential as editor of Drummer magazine.

Drummer is an American magazine which focuses on "leathersex, leatherwear, leather and rubber gear, S&M, bondage and discipline, erotic styles and techniques." The magazine was launched in 1975 and ceased publication in April 1999 with issue 214, but was relaunched 20 years later by new publisher Jack MacCullum with editor Mike Miksche.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBTQ culture in San Francisco</span>

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Folsom Street</span> Street in California, U.S.

Folsom Street is a street in San Francisco which begins perpendicular to Alemany Boulevard in San Francisco's Bernal Heights district and ends perpendicular to the Embarcadero on the San Francisco Bay. For its southern half, Folsom Street runs north–south, but it turns northeasterly at 13th street. It runs through San Francisco's Bernal Heights district, Mission District, SoMa District, Yerba Buena District, and South Beach district.

The Mineshaft was a members-only BDSM leather bar and sex club for gay men located at 835 Washington Street, at Little West 12th Street, in Manhattan, New York City, in the Meatpacking District, West Village, and Greenwich Village sections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Stud (bar)</span> Gay bar in San Francisco, California

The Stud is a gay bar currently located on 1123 Folsom Street in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dom Orejudos</span> American artist, dancer, and choreographer (1933–1991)

Domingo Francisco Juan Esteban "Dom" Orejudos, Secundo, also widely known by the pen names Etienne and Stephen, was an openly gay artist, ballet dancer, and choreographer, best known for his ground-breaking gay male erotica beginning in the 1950s. Along with artists George Quaintance and Touko Laaksonen —with whom he became friends—Orejudos' leather-themed art promoted an image of gay men as strong and masculine, as an alternative to the then-dominant stereotype as weak and effeminate. With his first lover and business partner Chuck Renslow, Orejudos established many landmarks of late-20th-century gay male culture, including the Gold Coast bar, Man's Country bathhouse, the International Mr. Leather competition, Chicago's August White Party, and the magazines Triumph, Rawhide, and Mars. He was also active and influential in the Chicago ballet community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley</span> Monument in San Francisco, United States of America

The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley consists of four works of art that honor the history of gay and lesbian leather culture in South of Market, San Francisco. The art is embedded in Ringold Street, an alley between 8th and 9th Street. The installation opened in 2017. The alley is part of the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony DeBlase</span> American leatherman and zoologist

Tony DeBlase (1942–2000), also known as Anthony DeBlase, was part of the BDSM and leather subcultures. He was the designer of the leather pride flag.

References

  1. ↑ Rubin, Gayle (2005). "Sites, settlements, and urban sex: archaeology and the study of gay leathermen in San Francisco, 1955-1995". In Schmidt, Robert A.; Voss, Barbara L. (eds.). Archaeologies of Sexuality. Routledge. pp. 62–88.
  2. 1 2 "16 — Pride is a Protest". prideisaprotest.com. Retrieved June 9, 2024.
  3. 1 2 "Folsom Street: The Miracle Mile - FoundSF". www.foundsf.org. Retrieved June 9, 2024.
  4. 1 2 Welch, Paul (June 26, 1964). "Homosexuality in America". Life . Vol. 56, no. 26. pp. 66–74.
  5. ↑ Brogan, Scott (August 24, 2010). "Looking back at leather". Bay Area Reporter .
  6. 1 2 3 Fritscher, Jack (1992). "Artist Chuck Arnett: His Life/Our Times". In Thompson, Mark (ed.). Leatherfolk: radical sex, people, politics, and practice. Alyson Publications. pp. 106–118. ISBN   9781555831875.
  7. 1 2 Opel, Robert (1995). "Requiem for a Toolbox". Drummer. Vol. 2. pp. 28–29.
  8. ↑ Rubin, Gayle (September 20, 2001). "The South of Market Leather History. A Short History and Walking Tour Guide". San Francisco Frontier: 20–22.
  9. ↑ "The Artistry of Leather and Desire: Archives Acquire Tool Box Mural". GLBT Historical Society. February 25, 2022. Retrieved June 9, 2024.
  10. ↑ "16 — Pride is a Protest". prideisaprotest.com. Retrieved June 9, 2024.
  11. ↑ "Chuck Arnett mural, Tool Box Bar ruins, 1975". Hidden from History: Accessing the GLBT Past. October 27, 2011. Retrieved June 10, 2024.
  12. ↑ Peetz, John Arthur (January 13, 2013). "NAYLAND BLAKE". Artforum. Retrieved June 10, 2024.
  13. ↑ Cindy (July 17, 2017). "Ringold Alley's Leather Memoir – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World". Artandarchitecture-sf.com. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
  14. ↑ Paull, Laura (June 21, 2018). "Honoring gay leather culture with art installation in SoMa alleyway – J". J. Jweekly.com. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.